Old Sex-and-Religion Thread Used As Author Bait

Summer Morning, thank you for taking the time to précis the vast volume of data linking our sexual politic with religion.

I can’t say for certain, but it’s possible that Sweetnpetite may have asked you to do that after I remarked on another thread that her sig line sums up my reason for writing erotica. Admittedly, when you point out the difference between sexually pessimistic and optimistic religions, perhaps her sig line needs some tweaking to ring as true as she intended it to be, and as I read it.

My reference to Sweetnpetite’s signature line was really a way of summing up my justification for writing erotica without creating a more lengthy diatribe. Since the subject has been expanded considerably, I think I should now offer a more complete explanation. In brief, I believe the highest calling I can aspire to is to encourage appreciation of life's aesthetic quality.

My first erotic writings of any note were created about twenty years ago strictly for profit. The stories I’m currently posting one by one on Literotica were written just a few years ago, but for the same reason. Unlike their earlier counterparts they have not earned me any money and I no longer expect them to. I’m happy to share them with a reading audience, and that’s all. What’s more interesting, however, is why I have reached the point where erotica has become my main interest as a writer. To explain it in full detail I would need to submit it in installments as a body of work, but I’ll try to précis it as you did with the religion-sex relationship.

Within the last year I became more acutely aware of something I’ve known for years, but have taken for granted: the fact that North American society is tainted with puritanical ideals. Since I was never a supporter of those ideals I lived for about forty years in North America without realising how profoundly they were effecting my life. I’m a politically radical person; a Marxist who endorses some forms of socialism merely because they are more socially acceptable than anarchy. I’m angry over the fact that right wing religious extremists have, in my view, completely hijacked the economic and cultural life of the entire continent, and I was looking for a way to fight back.

Since the control exerted by the right wingers includes a strangle hold on the media, there seemed little point in writing essays of social criticism, because they would never be published. It occurred to me, however, that the only reason others tolerate bullying by rightist leaders is because they, the people, have low expectations from life. They are convinced they don’t deserve better quality homes; more nutritious food; a night at the proverbial opera etc. Puritanical austerity has been made next to Godliness in their lives. So whenever people ask for something, whether it’s better road maintenance or more facilities to express themselves creatively, they are simply told that the economy won’t stand it, as though the economics of merchant capitalism are on a par with God’s laws and are always above question. I decided from there, that the most subversive thing I could do to fight back would be to write things that celebrate a more opulent lifestyle for everyone, in which the appreciation of the material world is more irrevocably linked to our spiritual fulfillment.

I’m not naive enough to think that sexy stories on Literotica are going to defeat domination by right wing extremists, or make people question the validity of libertine capitalism. The more people learn to appreciate erotica, however, the more likely they are to question the puritanism that is used to control them. I have other projects underway that go beyond erotica into subject areas such as fashion, fine art, politics, sport, gastronomy, music, drama, dance and so forth. I see erotica as working in tandem with these other projects, which include some publishing enterprises. As these enterprises gear up I hope to provide links to Literotica.

I was especially struck by your statement that we are sexually reproducing organisms, and if you control our sexuality then you control a large part of our lives. The control that corrupt leaders exert over people begins with control over their sexuality. By convincing people that their sexuality makes them evil and dirty, those leaders place themselves in the position of offering salvation. Make yourself clean and pious again by devoting yourself to the higher causes of this multinational corporation or that quasi political church group. Freeing people from that kind of control begins by freeing them to enjoy and appreciate themselves and each other sexually without shame. I’m fairly convinced of that, and that’s why Sweetnpetite’s signature line strikes a chord in me. After reading your post, however, I admit that I’d be inclined to say puritanism rather than religion seeks to compartmentalise sex. Apart from that I still think she did a good job of succinctly stating a case for erotica and sexual freedom in general.

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cantdog said:

I love sex and religion.

Especially sex.

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rgraham666 said:

Oh My God!

I just realised I'm supporting the puritans who rule us. Most of my works are romances. Two people, happily ever after and all the rest of that bullshit.

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rikaaim said:

I know I have years to go, and grow

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shereads said:

I'm sorry, honey, but that's a common misperception. Anybody who tells you they achieved continued personal growth after the age of, oh, twenty-one, is lying. Our brain cells begin to oxidize at age 16. Add the usual damage from too much beer or pornography, not to mention peyote or masturbation, and by the time we reach Gary C's age, we're lucky if we can still tie our own shoeslaces and appear in public without drooling.

This is it, rikaaim. You're as good as you'll ever get. You can still be president, if that's any comfort, but you'll have to unlearn some big words.

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minsue said:

I love you

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shereads said:

And I admire your excellent taste.

(Is this where I'm allowed to use the frog smiley, or is it more of a happy-cat moment? I didn't completely understand Joe's rules, because of brain-cell oxidation.)

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rikaaim said:

I have been the opposite of what I should be my whole life. I have proven every thing wrong that should be right and vice versa. So many personal vices have been broken, and family habits that die with me alone, that no amount of meer science, bah! science, shall deter me. Thanks for trying though, for your discouragement only fuels the fire to learn and expand further. [/B]

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cantdog said:

Sher is very easy to love. Her neuroscience is a little weak, perhaps. I knew a woman once, and not that sort of "knew"-- you pervs!-- an exemplary woman who had been so appalled at the intensity and foolishness of the young males in her high school that she thought of men as dangerous, nearly psychotic creatures.

She was a sailor's dream. Chestnut hair in soft waves, the lines of breasts and upper arms absolutely faultless--perfect in a so many ways that her imperfections endeared. Intelligent, artistic, an accomplished actress in later life. She was one of those rare ones. She had inspired some young men to excesses, evidently.

Shying from men, she pursued with the more fervor her acting. She had a job managing the stage at a museum, with its little theater company, and she came North to do a star turn in our local theater here. Where my close friend, much younger than I and unattached, fell head over heels. It took many weeks to convince her that he was not like the guys in high school, but he did manage it.

But the point is, he was indeed different from those guys. In fact, he was in his mid-twenties.

It is a physiological fact that the last "growth spurt" is almost entirely concerned with the brain. The brain does a sort of finishing school on itself from about age eighteen or nineteen until twenty-five. Thousands of new interconnections are formed, neural pathways laid down connecting and integrating.

The brain of a seventeen- and eighteen-year-old is a callow thing, all limbic system, emotional. The mental life of the teenager is of a different quality entirely from that of a twenty-six-year-old. All is emotion! Everything is so important! Maybe you can remember. Emotions drive everything.

But reason gains her throne, or what you would call the process, during this period of brain growth and maturation. He was well into this period, it was nearly complete. He was no longer capable of acting the way her early beaux had acted.

It is actually not until twenty-five that you start deteriorating, losing every year more brain cells.

Perhaps this is why you must be thirty-five to run for president.



cantdog

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cantdog said:

Acid. Peyote isn't big in Maine.

She married him and they are excited and happy, thus far.

Sorry to disappoint.

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minsue said:

Ssssssh! Be vewy vwey quiet. We'we huntin Canadians!

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shereads said:

I thought it was duck season.

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minsue said:

Heathen

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shereads said:

Oops. I meant rabbit season.

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